Punkademics

Edited by Zack Furness

The basement show in the ivory tower...

In the thirty years since Dick Hebdige published Subculture: The Meaning of Style, the seemingly antithetical worlds of punk rock and academia have converged in some rather interesting, if not peculiar, ways. A once marginal subculture documented in homemade ‘zines and three chord songs has become fodder for dozens of scholarly articles, books, PhD dissertations, and conversations amongst well-mannered conference panelists. At the same time, the academic ranks have been increasingly infiltrated by professors and graduate students whose educations began not in the classroom, but in the lyric sheets of 7” records and the cramped confines of all-ages shows.

Punkademics explores these varied intersections by giving voice to some of the people who arguably best understand the odd bedfellows of punk and academia. In addition to being one of the first edited collections of scholarly work on punk, it is a timely book that features original essays, interviews, and select reprints from notable writers, musicians, visual artists, and emerging talents who actively cut & paste the boundaries between punk culture, politics, and higher education.

Contributors: Milo J. Aukerman, Maria Elena Buszek, Zack Furness, Alastair Gordon, Ross Haenfler, Curry Malott, Dylan AT Miner, Ryan Moore, Tavia Nyong’o, Mimi Thi Nguyen, Alan O’Connor, Waleed Rashidi, Helen L. Reddington, Stevphen Shukaitis, Michael Siciliano, Rubén Ortiz-Torres, Estrella Torrez, Daniel S. Traber, and Brian Tucker.

“The worlds of punk and academia are deliberately dichotomous: the ‘cred’ of the former become ‘certified credentials’ when you enter the latter. This important exploration of the space between the two is weird, uncomfortable, and fraught with mistakes. And we don’t give a fuck if you don’t like it.” – Anne Elizabeth Moore, author of Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing and the Erosion of Integrity and former editor, Punk Planet

“Zack Furness and his nerdy bunch impressively reveal how the alternative tentacles of youthful rebellion are infiltrating and disrupting the predictable routines of the academy.” – Craig O’Hara, author of The Philosophy of Punk: More than Noise

“Punkademics is the best book I have read in a long time, finally a text that gives me hope in the future of higher education not being corporatized. Punkademics is a foundational and fundamental text on understanding the politics, history, and philosophy of punk rock and hardcore. If you want to know more about youth culture read this book, if you want care about music read this book, if you want to be a more effective teacher read this book!” – Anthony J. Nocella II, co-editor of Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic Industrial Complex

232 pages, 6 x 9

US: $24 / UK: £18

ISBN 978-1-57027-229-5

Released 1 May 2012 

Released by Minor Compositions, Wivenhoe / New York / Port Watson

Minor Compositions is a series of interventions & provocations drawing from autonomous politics, avant-garde aesthetics, and the revolutions of everyday life.

Minor Compositions is an imprint of Autonomedia

www.minorcompositions.info

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